Former women’s India hockey player Rajbir Kaur was in despair as her Olympian husband Gurmail Singh was sacked from his Punjab Police service post after she joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Rajbir Kaur is an Arjuna Awardee and has represented India in four Asian Games. A couple of months back; she joined AAP and shared her thoughts on how to eradicate the growing cases of drug addiction in Punjab.
Gurmail was a part of the Gold Medal winning 1980 Olympics Hockey team, and also the silver-winning medal 1982 Asian Games team. With the Indian team performing rather poorly in the recently concluded Rio Olympics, this incident piles on to the misery of the Indian Hockey fraternity.
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Speaking on the sad state of affairs of her husband, the former India captain despised the Police force for treating Gurmail in such an unfair manner. As per the reports of Tribune India, she said, “While the country has been regretting having missed gold again in the Olympics, here is a case where they are treating a medal winner so shoddily. The appointment in the police came on SI rank and there was no job benefit that came despite playing for the Punjab Police from 1978 to 1993 and giving coaching for six years. Had I joined SAD, this would have never happened.”
India was once an unmatched power in Hockey and is still the most successful nation in the history of the Olympics having won the Gold medal in as many as 8 occasions. But the flair has disappeared for quite some time, with their last Olympic Gold Medal at the 1980 Moscow Games.
It was also learnt as per reports that Gurmail, who was awarded the prestigious Dhyan Chand Award a couple of years back was previously given a 2-year extension for his job, but is now removed from the post with 17 months of service still remaining.
“My husband was awarded Dhyan Chand Trophy in 2014 by President Pranab Mukherjee. He was given a two-year extension after 58 years till December 31, 2017, and he still had 17 months of service. But they removed him citing a case against him in the Punjab and Haryana High Court regarding an inquiry that he was assigned in a murder case in December 2010”, said Rajbir.
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The Olympic Gold Medallist was certain about a conspiracy which led to this incident and also described how a case was forged against him by the CBI. Regarding the matter, he said, “I was then serving as SP (D) at Moga. I was asked to hold an inquiry into a murder case. I tried my best but could not find any witness or evidence and proposed that the case be withdrawn.”
“Then IG, ADGP and DGP endorsed my inquiry. But the case went to the High Court, which ordered a CBI probe. On CBI’s recommendations, a case was made against me on the charges of criminal conspiracy, forgery and disappearance of facts”, he added.
